John Gallagher: Tale of two futures? Future City blueprint shows what Detroit could be

January 13, 2013

The Detroit Future City report suggests that many neighborhoods in the city now scarred by vacant lots and excessive surface parking could be remade as a “canvas of green,” with trees, parks, farms, or bonds filling in vacant areas. The above image shows what the report’s authors envision. / Moses Harris/Detroit Free Press

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Van Blue talks from her east-side porch. Blue lives in a sparsely populated area, but she said she likes not having many neighbors. She says the city's vacant space should not be used for parks or ponds. / MANDI WRIGHT/Detroit Free Press

But that dystopian outlook is just one possible future. There's another, and this second future could be more upbeat.

The new Detroit Future City report, released last week to great fanfare, gives glimpses of this possible future in maps, graphs, data and images. If the report's hundreds of recommendations get carried out in full, Detroit could become a greener, healthier and more prosperous city. There could be jobs for all who want them, and a smoothly running transit system to let city residents get to those jobs.

"You can almost close your eyes and imagine what the city would look like in 50 years if every recommendation is followed," said Will Wittig, dean of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy.

In this more positive Detroit, residents will be growing more of their own food and generating more of their own energy on land once overgrown with weeds.

And, perhaps most significant, the world will be looking to Detroit as the globe's best example of a post-industrial city that figured out how to reinvent itself.

As Toni Griffin, the New York-based urban planner who headed the technical team that wrote the Detroit Future City plan, put it, "Detroit can become an innovative model for urban living."

Which future is more likely? That's up to Detroiters and the choices they make. But it is possible to at least offer images of what these rival versions would look like. And the goal of Detroit Future City, Griffin said, is to provide "real clarity" about what an improved Detroit would look like.

First, to glimpse what the "do-nothing" future may be like, visit any of Detroit's more abandoned districts today. The empty blocks west of the Coleman A. Young International Airport, or some of the mostly demolished blocks in the Brightmoor district on the far west side, show what 50 years of white flight, disinvestment and failed public policies create.

The more positive future can also be glimpsed in parts of Detroit today. The thriving mixed-used district of Midtown, the commercial activity along West Vernor in Mexicantown, and the robust apartment and condominium markets of the Gold Coast along the east riverfront -- these illustrate the denser, mixed-use character of much of what Detroit Future City hopes to create elsewhere in the city.

The first big difference in this future Detroit is that parts of the city would be much more densely developed than they are today. That's because, under Detroit Future City, resources would be targeted at the most vibrant districts to strengthen the areas that have the greatest potential for growth.

"Moving to a situation where more people live in higher-density areas and fewer people live in lower-density areas (a more efficient distribution) is a critical step in reducing the financial problems faced by service providers and end users," the report says.

"The fundamental challenge for economic development strategy and growth is not a matter of the physical scale of the city, as is often claimed, but the lack of employment density," it says.

So business and commercial districts would be enhanced with greater work-force training funds, more flexible transit options and new residential development.

Detroit's residential neighborhoods, meanwhile, now mostly filled with single-family houses, would see a greater range of options, including attached townhouses and multi-family buildings.

"To be viable and sustainable, Detroit's neighborhoods now need to provide a wide choice of housing types," the report says.

And what of the "blue-green" landscape discussed so prominently in the report? One of the virtues of the Detroit Future City report is that it gives so many illustrations of what these suggested new uses may actually look like.

So, in discussing what an "urban/green district" may look like, there it is on Pages 244-245 of the report. The "current" view shows many gaps in the urban landscape that by default become parking lots or dumping grounds for trash. Then the image 50 years out shows that the gaps have been filled with trees that form "carbon forests" along freeways to soak up pollution, while greenways lace through the revitalized neighborhood.

It's part of what Detroit Future City calls "a canvas of green" -- stately boulevards, open green space, urban woodlands, ponds and streams and new uses of natural landscapes to clean the air, restore ecological habitats and produce locally sourced food.

"Detroit actually has the opportunity to lead the region in creating a new urban form, becoming a model for other North American cities," the report says. "Here, in the midst of tremendous challenge, is the opportunity to transform the city's form and function in new and exciting ways."

Or consider the new "blue" infrastructure envisioned by the report: A series of ponds, lakes, swales and other water features that would capture rainwater before it runs into the city's overburdened sewer system. Turn to Page 133 in the Detroit Future City report, and there's a rendering of flooded fields in what once was a residential district.

Interestingly, not even Detroit Future City envisions a Detroit with a significantly larger population than it has now. Nobody is predicting a return to the nearly 2 million people Detroit recorded in the 1950 census.

The Detroit Works Long-Term Planning team that produced Detroit Future City predicts that Detroit will continue to lose people for years to come before stabilizing around 600,000 to 615,000 perhaps 20 years from now. Detroit had 713,777 people in the 2010 census.

But as the report emphasizes, the quality of life for all Detroiters is more important than actual numbers. Detroit can be a great city of 600,000 or a dysfunctional city with more or fewer residents.

This may be a good point to emphasize what the Detroit Works teams tried to hammer home last week. Detroit Future City is not a "plan" in the usual sense, with specific lines on a map showing what will happen where. Rather, the report offers a framework, a series of imperatives and strategies that should guide thinking in years to come.

Nor are the concepts in Detroit Future City exactly new. City planners have been talking about urban farming and other "blue" and "green" infrastructure for several years now. Detroit alone has hundreds of community gardens, and a network of greenways is already under construction in part in Detroit.

As for creating a new "blue" infrastructure, St. Paul, Minn., ripped out a failing shopping center in the 1990s to create a wetlands on the site.

But if Detroit Future City is a compilation of a lot of ideas current in urban planning circles today, it also marks the first time that so many innovative ideas have been gathered together in one place and applied to a real-life city.

"It became clear that 'if we did nothing,' the quality of life and businesses in Detroit would continue to decline," the report says.